Balance Wouldn't Be Law Of Nature If Extremes Were Good Things For Us by Robert Quillen (1937)

I spent most of last Friday perusing thrift stores and found a lovely vintage copy of The Book of Courage: A Little Book of Brave Thoughts, edited by Edwin Osgood Grover, published in 1924. The little book had been a Christmas gift from or to a Jule many years ago. Somewhere along the way, this newspaper clipping had been tucked inside.

BALANCE WOULDN’T BE LAW OF NATURE IF EXTREMES WERE GOOD THINGS FOR US

By ROBERT QUILLEN

“WHY DOES a just and merciful God permit evil men to prosper while better people live in want?”

The question seems to assume that the earth is a kind of WPA project, supported by heavenly relief, which frequently rewards the undeserving through carelessness or clerical error.

If that is true, the wonder is that anybody gets enough to eat; for none can claim heaven’s bounty on the basis of his merit alone. The “good” who receive little are good only by comparison with the evil.

People are permitted to make money or remain poor for the same reason that they are permitted to be selfish or unselfish, good or bad, lazy or industrious. They are not helpless automatons, pushed around by invisible angels, but free agents, possessed of reason, privileged to do well or ill as they choose and get such reward as they can for their labors.

We cannot know God’s plan or purpose except by inference and logical deduction. That we are expected to use this process seems logical, for God gave us brains and the natural inference is that He expected us to use them.

This complicated, man-made civilization, which we have not yet learned to manage, confuses our thinking and hides fundamental truths. The scheme of things will be easier to understand if we picture man in his natural state, when he got his living by wresting it from nature, as the true farmer does today.

It is logical to assume that God loves His creatures, from which it follows that whatever is good for us is God’s will.

Since He provided natural abundance and made it possible for every creature to supply its needs by moderate effort, it is clear that He wishes us to have plenty.

But since no man, in a natural state, could get great wealth by his own effort, without cheating or imposing on others, it is equally clear that He does not wish us to have riches.

If this is true, it follows that neither want nor wealth is good for us.

Middle-class people in all ages are the custodians of morality. And moderation is the essence of virtue. So the happiest people and the best are those too poor to be corrupted by wealth and too rich to be degraded by want and suffering.

When our civilization provides that happy medium for all, it won’t be an offense to heaven.

(Copyright, 1937.)